[Savannah-hackers-public] volunteering

[Brandon Invergo]

Hello Savannah Hackers,

I've been wanting to help out with the GNU project for a while now but
I've been unsure of where to help. I assume that Savannah still needs
help, despite the resurrection back in November. Of course, I understand
that this would mostly entail reviewing project submissions, so, as
instructed, I've included what my response to a submission (#11765
CDEsql) below.

However, what I would be more interested in doing, if you guys approve,
would be to help clean out old, inactive things. In particular, the Help
Wanted area has posts going back a decade. I think it's safe to assume
that many of those requests may be considered closed and removed at this
point. Another, possibly touchier subject, would be to flag old,
inactive and incomplete projects for removal. For both cases, I've
written a suggested protocol below. 

This isn't so much about space, which I'm sure isn't a huge problem.
It's that, for me, as a visitor to Savannah, when I saw the Help Wanted
area full of old posts and many of the projects apparently abandoned, it
made the site feel a bit stale or inactive. I think cleaning out some of
the cobwebs wouldn't hurt...

Well, I hope these suggestions aren't provocative. Either way, I'd like
to help out however I can!

Cheers,
Brandon Invergo

---
Reply to task #11765: CDEsql
https://savannah.gnu.org/task/?11765

Hello Vineet,

My name is Brandon Invergo, and I have reviewed the submission of your
project CDEsql to GNU Savannah. Unfortunately, we would not be able to
accept your project as submitted. Please be aware that Savannah, as a
hosting service, supports free (as in freedom) software, which is
ideologically different from open source, so we ask that you describe
your project as "free" rather than "open source". Furthermore, we do not
wish to promote non-free software, so we would ask that you remove the
reference to Visual Studio or at least encourage the use of free
software alternatives ahead of it.

Finally, while it's clear that the source code you submitted is just a
placeholder, any source file hosted on Savannah must contain license
information at the top.

Please refer to the following pages for more information:
https://savannah.gnu.org/register/requirements.php
https://savannah.gnu.org/maintenance/HowToGetYourProjectApprovedQuickly

Regards,
Brandon

---
Suggested protocol for cleaning the Help Wanted section:

Posts older than one year would be removed. Around a week before
removing a post, the original poster would be contacted so they can be
made aware of the pending action. If the position is still available,
they would be encouraged to repost the ad, which would also renew its
visibility (but they should only do this after being given the ok from
an admin, of course)

---
Suggested protocol for cleaning out old projects:

This would require a lot more care and attention. First of all, only
projects which have been inactive for at least X years (3? 5?) would be
considered. In all cases, the project would not be immediately deleted.
Instead, it would be flagged for review by another admin, and then we
would attempt to contact the project owner to verify that the project is
abandoned. It's important not to be overly zealous with this since even
inactive projects can be of value to people starting new projects.

Some rules for deciding to flag a project for removal (again, only after
it's been inactive for X years):
- no source code has been uploaded
- it's determined that project activity is occurring on a different
hosting service 
- development status < 2(?)